On the third anniversary of 9/11, Mark Steyn wrote the following, and what he wrote remains true on this, the seventh anniversary:

Three years after September 11th, the Islamist death cult is the love whose name no-one dare speak. And, if you can’t even bring yourself to identify your enemy, are you likely to defeat him? Can you even know him? He seems to know us pretty well. He understands the pressures he can bring to bear on Spain, and the Phillipines, and France, too. He’s come to appreciate the self-imposed constraints under which his enemy fights – the legalisms, the political correctness, the deference to ineffectual multilateralism. He’s revolted by the infidels’ decadence but he has to admit it’s enormously helpful: the useful idiots of the pro-gay, pro-feminist left are far more idiotic and far more useful to him than they ever were to Stalin. He’s figured out that while pluralistic open democracy might be a debased system of government next to Sharia, it has its moments: he had no idea quite so many westerners so loathed their own governments and, if not their own, then certainly America’s. And he never thought that, even in America, while one party is at war, the other party is at war with the very idea that there is a war. And even the party committed to war presides over a lethargic unreformed bureaucracy large chunks of which are determined to obstruct it.

So, despite the loss of the Afghan training camps  and Saddam and the Taliban and three-quarters of al-Qaeda’s leadership, it hasn’t been a bad three years: he has learned the limits of the west’s resolve, and all he has to do is put a bit of thought into exploiting it in the years ahead. A nuclear Iran will certainly help.

 Michael Medved in Townhall refutes arguments that find resemblances between the career of President Lincoln the Republican and Candidate Obama the Democrat.  (Read the whole thing here.)

 Aside from the vast differences in the scope of their political involvement, Lincoln and Obama followed sharply divergent paths in pursuit of their private sector careers. Obama chose to devote himself principally to the non-profit world: spending years as a community organizer, lecturer at the University of Chicago, and civil rights lawyer. Lincoln, taking a break from full-time politics in 1849, aggressively built up his reputation and personal wealth as a business lawyer, particularly for railroads. He handled more than 5,000 cases, and became known as one of the top corporate attorneys in the state, if not the nation.

  Lincoln also compiled another experience that Obama never approached. In 1832, he responded to the governor’s call for volunteers and enlisted in the militia to battle a bloody Indian threat in the Black Hawk War. He quickly won election as captain of a company of volunteers, and years later said he “cherished that honor…more than nomination for the presidency.” Though he never experienced a major battle in his ninety days of service, Captain Lincoln learned the responsibilities of command and the need for quick decisions and adaptability in dangerous situations.

  Finally, Lincoln displayed admirable consistency in his approach to the issues of the day throughout his political and business career. He remained a proud American nationalist determined to strengthen the union, as well as a dedicated foe of the extension of slavery. He pursued these goals relentlessly on the state and national level and the same commitments, obviously, animated his eventful presidency.

  Obama’s career, on the other hand, shows no evidence of long-term engagement with particular issues or even broad aims. Hillary Clinton could boast of her leadership for more than sixteen years in efforts to reform the health insurance system but Obama (beyond eloquent backing for a deliberately vague concept of “racial justice”) can point to no lodestars that guided him in his wanderings and adventures, no national controversies that consistently engaged his attention. The backtracking, revisions and gauzy evasions characterizing the nineteen months of his presidential campaign look anything but Lincolnian in terms of predictability.  

  In short, the dramatic contrasts with Lincoln reveal far more about Obama than do the strained efforts to recast him in the sixteenth president’s image. At the time he announced his presidential candidacy, Obama remained so little known, so novel and exotic and unprecedented, that his campaign itself claimed to deliver some sort of radical change. Lincoln, on the other hand, had become such a familiar fixture (and fixer) in American politics by the time he ran for president that his campaign took on a reassuring, well-worn aura: they called him “Old Abe” despite his relatively youthful age of 51. No contemporaries questioned Lincoln’s candidacy on the basis of lack of experience while all impartial observers of the contemporary season note Obama’s absence of preparation for the world’s most challenging job.

  Today, of course, Old Abe’s immortal words and deeds remain so compelling and fresh that even 143 years after his death, they seem perpetually young. For Obama, on the other, the gimmicks and platitudes (“We are the ones we have been waiting for!”) that seemed so fresh and vital a year ago have already begun to wear out their welcome and seem increasingly stale, tarnished, tired – and old. 

 From Russia Today:

Obama’s brother lives in a Kenyan shack

U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama’s lost brother has been tracked down in Kenya. George Hussein Onyango Obama, aged 26, was found by journalists from the Italian edition of Vanity Fair. He reportedly lives in poverty in a shack on the outskirts of Nairobi.

He has the same father as the U.S. senator, Barack Hussein Obama, but a different mother.  Her name has been given as Jael.

The youngest of Obama’s half-brothers says he lives on less than a dollar per month in a 2m x 3m shack. Its walls are decorated with posters of famous footballers and a calendar featuring exotic beaches. The magazine also noted George has a newspaper picture of his brother.

He has only met his famous brother twice. Once when he was five and then in 2006 when Senator Obama visited Nairobi. George admits their meeting was very brief and cool.

It seems to us that if Barack Obama wants to redistribute wealth, he could start by redistributing his own. He could give some to his own brother, for instance. 

 From the Jerusalem Post:

The BBC’s own Newsnight current affairs programme reported on Tuesday night’s broadcast that the BBC’s Children in Need charity had donated around £20,000 to the Leeds Community School, Yorkshire, between 1999 and 2002 which went towards funding the activities of the terrorists behind the July 2005 attacks.

Read the whole article here. 

 Now Russia threatens Poland, the Telegraph reports:

As Condoleezza Rice arrived in Georgia to finalise a peace deal and secure the withdrawal of Russian troops from the former Soviet state, Moscow raised the stakes with an explicit threat against another US ally.

"Poland is making itself a target. This is 100 percent" certain, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted General Anatoly Nogovitsyn as saying.

"It becomes a target for attack. Such targets are destroyed as a first priority," Gen Nogovitsy was quoted as saying.

He added that Russia’s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons "against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them," Interfax said.

Russia reacted furiously last night when Washington agreed to sell a Patriot defence battery to Warsaw. "The fact that this was signed in a period of very difficult crisis in the relations between Russia and the United States over the situation in Georgia shows that, of course, the missile defence system will be deployed not against Iran but against the strategic potential of Russia," said Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to Nato.

Ed Morrissey in Front Page Magazine reports:

 Ukraine delivered a diplomatic bombshell across Russia’s bow today, escalating tensions in the region over their invasion of South Ossetia.  The Kiev government announced that they may bar the Russian Navy from using their ports in the Crimea as part of its effort to maintain neutrality.  Moscow had negotiated leases through 2017 with Kiev, and needs the ports to support its war on Georgia:

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said the deployment of a Russian naval squadron to Georgia’s Black sea coast has the potential of drawing Ukraine into the conflict.

“In order to prevent the circumstances in which Ukraine could be drawn into a military conflict … Ukraine reserves the right to bar ships which may take part in these actions from returning to the Ukrainian territory until the conflict is solved,” said the statement which was posted on the ministry’s Web site.

The Ukraine government didn’t need a reminder of how Russia treats its former satellites when they get too independent, but they’re certainly learning from the Georgian example.  Ukraine’s move makes it clear to Vladimir Putin that Russia will pay a steep political and military price for their adventure in the Caucasus.  It also sends a signal of support to the beleaguered government in Tbilisi, which can use all the friends it can get at the moment.

Russia seemed surprised at the statement.  Their defense minister called the warning “quite unexpected”, but it follows normal diplomatic protocols.  Any nation providing military support for a belligerent during an armed conflict is a de facto belligerent themselves, unless they cut off that support.  Ukraine’s action isn’t just expected but a normal response for any nation wishing to remain at least neutral.

Russia may gain South Ossetia and Abkhazia in this grab, but Putin has let the mask slip.  Former Soviet republics will learn to to fear Russia and to gravitate to the West for protection — as long as we stand firmly for Georgia.  Fortunately, the Bush administration is now following John McCain’s lead on this issue and sending exactly that signal.

 China’s pretty slogans and the heart-warming Olympic theme about one world and harmony  are exposed as empty and illusory, as the Jerusalem Post reports: 

Politics reared its ugly head at the Olympic Games once more on Saturday after an Iranian swimmer refused to compete alongside Israeli Tom Be’eri.

Swimmers dive into water in the National Aquatics Center at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, Saturday.
Photo: AP

Mohammad Alirezaei was due to race against Be’eri in the fourth heat of the 100 meter breaststroke, but pulled out, apparently under the orders of the chiefs of the Iranian delegation.

"This isn’t the first time this has happened and it doesn’t surprise me anymore," Olympic Committee of Israel General Secretary Efraim Zinger told The Jerusalem Post."Politics takes precedence over sport with the Iranians and the Olympic spirit is as far from them as east is far from west.

"My heart goes out to the Iranian athletes. In the Athens Olympics one of their sportsmen, who was a gold medal favorite, had to pull out because he was drawn against an Israeli.

"There’s no place for this kind of behavior in the Olympic movement and it’s a shame it continues."

 Worse even than Obama’s taking money from our enemies – Karen Hughes gave it to them.   

This from Jihad Watch and NewsMax:

Bush aide Karen Hughes gave money to jihadist groups

So says Steve Emerson. "Terrorism Expert: Karen Hughes Gave Money to Bad Guys," by Kenneth R. Timmerman for NewsMax, August 3 (thanks to PRCS):

A longtime adviser and close confidant of President Bush funneled millions of dollars in U.S. government grants to radical Islamist organizations, many of whose leaders have been convicted or indicted in terrorism cases in the United States, respected terrorism expert Steven Emerson told Congress last week.

“When Ms. [Karen] Hughes was appointed as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, she set the tone to continue a disastrous policy of outreach with Islamist partners,” Emerson told the House International Relations Committee.

Among the recipients of the State Department grants actively championed by Hughes was Ahmed Younes, formerly an official with the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a group that has “publicly challenged the designation of Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations” and whose leaders “have made extreme statements defending terrorist organizations,” Emerson said.

Another beneficiary of Hughes’ outreach program to American Muslims was Aly Abuzaakouk, the executive director of the American Muslim Council (AMC) and a former director of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIHT).

 

Actually, it’s the IIIT.

The North Virginia-based IIHT “is suspected of being a pivotal cog in the Muslim Brotherhood’s high command in America," according to federal law enforcement records newly released to Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism under the Freedom of Information Act….

The IIIT was named as an allied group in the infamous Muslim Brotherhood memorandum of 1991 that emphasized that the Brothers “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Anyway, read it all.

 

 

 Jim Brown reports on ONENEWSNOW:

 John Bolton writes in the Wall Street Journal (whole article here):

Iran is pursuing two goals simultaneously, both of which it is comfortably close to achieving. The first – to possess all the capabilities necessary for a deliverable nuclear weapon – is now almost certainly impossible to stop diplomatically. Thus, Iran’s second objective becomes critical: to make the risks of a military strike against its program too high, and to make the likelihood of success in fracturing the program too low. Time favors Iran in achieving these goals. U.S. and European diplomats should consider this while waiting by the telephone for Iran to call.